Vegan quinoa cookies that are healthy with chocolate chips and no flour. This simple recipe is easy to make and full of good stuff. It’s suitable for paleo diets as the quinoa is sprouted.

Quinoa is actually a seed not a grain and is naturally gluten-free. This recipe is full of plant protein from the quinoa, cacao and flaxseeds.

These gluten free quinoa cookies are super easy to make as the quinoa is not boiled – the oven cooks quinoa. Use chocolate chips in these vegan quinoa cookies to make bursts of molten chocolate inside these semi hard cookies.

These did turn out better in testing. When I actually made these I may have blended the mixture for a bit too long making it quite hot. Resulting in the chocolate melting instantly when stirred into the batter.

It’s best if the batter only slightly melts the chocolate so you have chunks of chocolate left in. These cookies get a beautiful marbling effect from the melting chocolate.

The most important part of this recipe is to blend the quinoa and flaxseeds until it’s all broken up. If the quinoa isn’t broken up then hard bits will be in the cookie and they won’t be great to eat.

Flax and linseed are the same thing. You can get it in many different colours from golden to brown. It adds protein, fibre and structure to this gluten-free cookie.

Chia seeds can be used in place of the flax seed if you prefer. They both have the same jelling effect needed for this recipe. Flaxseed was chosen purely to not affect the colour, but the same amount of chia seed won’t affect the colour that much.

This recipe is sweetened purely with fruit. If you don’t have a sweet tooth the dates can be left out as they are purely there for sweetness, but they do also add fibre and vitamins.

Dates can be substituted with just about any other dried fruit.

I know one question I will get for this is what to use instead of banana. Really the banana is vital but you may be able to replace it with sweet potato, the resulting cookie will be different but still good.

Quinoa is soaked in this recipe to make it easier to blend and for the body to digest. There is no need to cook your quinoa as raw quinoa is sprouted and then cooked in the oven.

I’m using very dark 84% cacao chocolate for this recipe. You could use cocoa or cacao powder if you prefer or a no added sugar chocolate. I do think it works best with small chunks of chocolate as they often bubble up making the cookie look like a chocolate volcano.

Overripe bananas that are too soft to eat as a snack are perfect for this quinoa cookie recipe.

Quinoa is actually a seed although it’s often used like a grain. Unline grains it’s relatively high in nutrition and a high-quality protein source as it contains all the essential amino acids.